riddlemay wrote:Did the state parks and museums listed in Cathy's 2008 post above eventually get saved? Or are they all gone now? I'm just catching up with this thread--and with the bad news--and the prospect of all those sites being gone horrifies me. I hope that's not how it played out.

In the spring of 1995, the Apple River Fort Historic Foundation set out to locate the Apple River Fort, which had been torn down in 1847, fifteen years after the Black Hawk attack. Local lore said the Fort was located on a hillside not far from Main Street Elizabeth. Uncertain, the Foundation hired an archeologist, whose initial inspection of the site turned up a variety of artifacts from the 1830's. Excavations revealed not only musket balls, a small cellar and a trash pit, but also, the fort's footprint, a 50 by 70 foot area, somewhat smaller than originally speculated.

The Aurora Regional Fire Museum is located in Aurora's old Central Fire Station. The museum is open to the public regular hours, and features a variety of interactive exhibits designed to educate and entertain children, families, and firefighters.

Culinary Curiosity Exhibition at Kendall College. An Online virtual museum features retrospective of nearly 300 culinary, baking and confectionary cooking tools. More than 130 items from the exhibition are featured on the Web site along with descriptions and videos about their manufacture, origin and use, as well as the solutions they provided in the era during which they were employed. This unique “virtual museum exhibit” can be found at http://www.culinarycuriosity.org.

A free tour of The Culinary Curiosity Exhibition at Kendall College can be arranged by contacting Patsy Caruso, Executive Director of the Kendall College Charitable Trust, at pcaruso@kendall.edu or 312-752-2352.

As a Lincoln fan, this post intrigued me so I sought it out on Monday. Online information puts the plaque at 1238 W. Washington, but it seemed more like 1234. Fun to seek out, but made worth the trip by a visit to nearby Grazianos afterward for a sandwich and some groceries--my kind of a One-Two Punch.

Being a Lincoln fan, have you read Sarah Vowell's Assassination Vacation? I had a brief hospital stay this past summer, and a friend brought it for me to read and pass time. The topic seemed pretty morbid, particularly to be reading in a hospital bed, but the book was/is hilarious. From the chapter on President Garfield's assassination:

I am pro-plaque. New York is lousy with them, and I love how spotting a plaque can jazz up even the most mundane errand. Once I stepped out of a deli on Third Avenue and turned the corner to learn I had just purchased gum near the former site of Peter Stuyvesant's pear tree. For a split second I had fallen through a trapdoor that dumped me out in New Amsterdam, where in 1647 the peg-legged Dutch governor planted a tree he brought over from Holland; until a fatal wagon accident, it bore fruit for more than two hundred years. To me, every plaque, no matter what words are inscribed on it, says the same magic informative thing: Something happened! The gum cost a dollar, but the story was free.

Near this site stood Newberry and Dole's warehouse on the Brig Osceola, in 1839, they shipped the first cargo of wheat from the Port of Chicago.

Erected by Chicago's Charter Jubilee[Chicago Historical Society]

1937

Also, it wouldn't be a walkable one-two punch, but I think a visit to Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Catherdral would be a lovely prelude to dinner at the architect's eponymous restaurant, Henri. I chose my apartment to live on the same street as this building.

It was a splendid weekend to be out driving around. In 1994 I was taking docent training for the Schingoethe Museum of Native American Culture which is housed at Aurora University when we visited a private collection of artifacts somewhere west of Yorkville Illinois. The owner was Howard Christensen who was a farmer but also a master woodworker and life long student of Native American culture. A great deal of the arrowheads and stone tools on display were found by Christensen on his farm or nearby. I have been trying to refind this place for years and finally googled his name only to find his 2008 obituary. I did find out however that this is now a museum and is run by his daughter. The museum is only open on Sundays from 1-4 only until the end of October when she closes for the winter until May. It is also open most any day between May and October if you make an appointment.

For those of you who want to see other sights along the way, this museum is ten minutes away from the Farnsworth House in Plano and about the same from Silver Springs State Park. Be sure to google the address for a map, the museum's website doesn't have one.

A nice find out in the QC area. I had seen signs for the Niabi Zoo on my frequent trips to the QC this summer on eating trips. Decided this past Saturday to take advantage of the weather and a free day at the zoo.

Small zoo, and well maintained. I am torn about zoo's like many - caging animals, etc. But I am not going to Africa anytime soon, so it is what it is.

Exhibits we enjoyed were the petting zoo, and the bobcat exhibit. I was particularly interested in the bobcats as it helped me confirm that a bobcat is in fact what I saw in my backyard a few weeks ago.

I was particularly interested in the bobcats as it helped me confirm that a bobcat is in fact what I saw in my backyard a few weeks ago.

Really

yep, it was around 7:00 a.m., at the back of my property, looked just like those guys(same color pelt), I didnt know what it was at first, but the stumpy tail, and the familiar walk of a cat gave it away.

The bobcat isnt my only recent visitor/resident. I have a pack of coyotes living in the woods at the back of my property., between these predators I rarely see deer anymore, and the wild turkeys havent been around in a long time.

It was nice to see them at the zoo as I rearely get a glimpse of these nightime creatures, I just hear them and see their footprints.

jbw wrote:. . . which is, if course, the spot on the 5600 block of South Ellis where the wonderful Henry Moore statue commemorates the first self-sustaining, controlled nuclear reaction.

soon after this first succesfull experiment, the Chicago Pile # 1(first nuclear reactor) was disassembled and moved further from the city for safety reasons around Feb. 1943. They didnt want to blow up one of the largest cities in the country.. It was reassembled on the site of a golf course off Archer Ave., in Cook County and was disposed of there in a 40 ft. pit(1950's disposal techniques), with Chicago Pile #3. Albert Einstein is rumored to have visited the site when it was in operation. THis was the original Argonne Labs, also called Univ. of Chicago's Met lab. This site was a major part of the Manhattan Project.

Gotta be up for a mile+ round trip hike as the site is in the middle of the Red Gate Woods Forest Preserve(currently closed for the winter). Here is an old access road leading to the site( ahike throught the woods from the main parkign lot is also a way to access these old service roads), I have heard their are some of the old buildings foundations in place in addition to the (2) monuments that mark the disposal sites.

Im just waiting for the preserve to open, or the weather to warm up before hiking in on one of my lunch breaks.

I do not believe beautiful Navoo has been mentioned. Almost beyond description you can see one of the worlds great gun museums and a musical representing teen peer pressure cast with spry 80 year olds on the bank of the Mississippi and among the oldest architecture in the state while drinking fresh made caffinated root beer by people who avoid caffine.Along with the architectural river cruise it is my top tourist destination in the state.

“Statistics show that of those who contract the habit of eating, very few survive.”George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright (1856-1950)

third coast foodie wrote:I do not believe beautiful Navoo has been mentioned. Almost beyond description you can see one of the worlds great gun museums and a musical representing teen peer pressure cast with spry 80 year olds on the bank of the Mississippi and among the oldest architecture in the state while drinking fresh made caffinated root beer by people who avoid caffine.Along with the architectural river cruise it is my top tourist destination in the state.

Agree with you that the area around Nauvoo is one of the most beautiful stretches of the Mississippi River.

I think that the reason that it falls "off the beaten path", is that the attractions of Historical Nauvoo are operated by the LDS Church and staffed by its missionaries. That is something that some people find threatening. For local LDS members, it is a major shrine and destination.

I have been there 3-4 times as it was near my retreat when lived in St. Louis - Keokuk, IA.

If you are in the area, remember that Newton, IA and the famous Maytag Cheese factory is nearby.

Gotta be up for a mile+ round trip hike as the site is in the middle of the Red Gate Woods Forest Preserve(currently closed for the winter). Here is an old access road leading to the site

Since Red Gate Woods FP is not closed, I am confident you mean that just it's parking lot is closed (for the winter)

Across the street from the access road gate pic. of yours is a wide shoulder. It's there because "back in the days" it was the "end of the line" for the public bus line. (Used by many of the site workers) The bus needed room in order to turn around.

While I have not checked the coordinates, this wiki page has some GPS numbers for the area....

jimswside wrote:Gotta be up for a mile+ round trip hike as the site is in the middle of the Red Gate Woods Forest Preserve(currently closed for the winter). Here is an old access road leading to the site

Since Red Gate Woods FP is not closed, I am confident you mean that just it's parking lot is closed (for the winter)

Ron

According to the person i talked to @ the CCFPD, Red Gate Woods is closed for the winter, parking and all access, to reopen maybe in April, I took her at her word, plus its too damn cold right now For me to explore properly. Its all good.

Special thanks to RonJS for info and feedback regarding the Red Gate Woods area.

I made it back yesterday and was ready to hike in from Archer Ave, however the forest preserve was open this fine 60 degree day making access easier. That said I estimate the hike to get to both sites was over 2 miles(got turned around a couple times), took about 1 hour 15 minutes of quick paced walking and manuevering around some mud. Glad I lost those 30 lbs. over the past 10 months, but this hike almost kicked my butt.

Eerily quiet/dead energy area to my senses, the access road is crumbling and leads to Site A(where CP2 & CP3 are buried, an unpaved access road leads to Plot M(low level radiocative material dump). Really hard to imagine what this place was like back in the day.

Nice Jim! I enjoy your explorations! I'll have to let you know when that small museum near the Farnsworth House opens up again in May. I think your family would enjoy it a lot. I need to get out a lot more this spring.

Vital Information wrote:The other day, Blues Brothers was on TV. Of course it is a mixed movie, with certain aspects, the cartoon recoverys from rocket attacks, not holding up well, but it is an especially interesting archive of Chicago IMO. It seems to have been filmed at a cusp when old Chicago still existed, but would soon be gone. The els were the old els, the skid rows were the old skid rows, Maxwell Street was the real Maxwell Street (why change Nate's Deli into a soul food place though), Bigsby and Karuthers was haute fashion, Chez Paul was fine dinning.* I am glad the stuff got captured even if it means watching too many wrecked cars.

Blues Brothers is one of the few movies I own, and will stop what I am doing whenever its on. Love the soundtrack, and the Chicagoland scenery.

I have been exploring Joliet lately and the Joliet Correctional Center, aka Old Joliet Prison had come to my attention. The Joliet Jake Gate or the gate on Collins Street(Route 171) was the opening scene for the Blues Brothers and across the street in the former womens prison annex scenes for Natural Born Killers were filmed.

The prison has been closed for about 10 years, and plans are in flux to make it a tourist attraction(tours, etc). If they ever did open it up id love to check it out.

If the styling of the Joliet Prison seems familiar, it's because it's by W.W. Boyington, Chicago's most prominent mid-19th-Century architect. Sister structures by him are the Water Tower, and the gate/office of the Rosehill Cemetery.

Twenty years ago, you could still dine at Hotel Florence. They would have a monthly Victorian meal.

Back then there were great hopes for a railroad museum to be located in the factory. There were plans for a railroad line from the Science and Industry Museum to the Railroad Museum. It all went up in smoke when a homeless person set fire to the factory.

There are occasional architectural tours of Pullman where you learn a lot about the overall design, which administrator lived where, the bachelor quarters, worker's homes and the social set up.

In East Chicago, there is another factory-developed community named Marktown designed by Howard Van Doren Shaw (who designed Lake Forest's Market Square).